All that money creates dangerous temptation

RAY RATTO, EXAMINER COLUMNIST

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, March 28, 1998

SAN ANTONIO - Rick Majerus climbed into a golf cart at the floor of the Alamodome so he could be rushed to a coaches' seminar on the evils of gambling, a gathering made more imperative by the fresh allegations of point-shaving within the sub-modest Northwestern basketball program.

Majerus, though, was more interested in attending North Carolina's public workout. As the head coach at Utah, which was to play the Tar Heels in Saturday's second national semifinal, he more than anyone else would need every extraneous piece of information he could gather.

"I don't know," he said as he was whisked off. "Should I go in knowing what the line is on our game, or what?"

A speech on gambling would probably be lost on Majerus, anyway. He is too susceptible to the more wide-eyed elements of the Final Four, especially now that he has finally reached one as a head coach. Time and again Friday, he caught himself staring at the banner hanging from the table across from the scorer's table and focusing on the "Utah" legend. "I can't get over that," he said. "I just can't help staring at that and enjoying it."

Outside his eye of the storm, however, this Final Four is slightly areel over the Northwestern news, and before that the gambling scandals at Arizona State, Fresno State and Boston College. The Final Four is the NCAA's crowning jewel, and its most well-endowed cash cow. Indeed, it is almost more a sacred cow than a cash one.

But only almost. Its very size is both its strength and its weakness, and the NCAA's biggest wigs were flashed the weapon that could bring it down.

The Northwestern case is worrisome because it challenges one of the NCAA's most fundamental beliefs - that a school with a strong tradition of both academics and affluence isn't as vulnerable to game-fixing as any other.

Worse, because of the case's links to the Northwestern football program and to student bookmakers, the NCAA feels justifiably powerless, except to hold a press conference to wonder why.

The answer, of course, is right in front of them - the Final Four itself, the shining bank card in the whole organizational wallet. It only makes sense to think that a small killing for a conference game involving two mediocre teams could turn into a huge killing for a tournament game.

"There's a lot of money right here, a lot of money in the tickets, a lot of money they're making," Majerus said.

"Sometimes I wonder what the kids get out of it. We try to compartmentalize our kids' time . . . When we're on the road, I want the kids to go snorkeling or bodysurfing or whatever, whether they want to or not. But if you're a kid and you're on some Bataan Death March of games and practices and film work and nothing else, maybe you're going to think, "Hey, why can't I make a few bucks on this, too?'

"There's just too much money, I think. I'm paid way too much money. A few years ago, I told the school I was making too much money, so how about just tenure? You'd have thought I said, "Hey, how about getting me some women?' A lot of places talk the whole college experience, but they don't walk it. They hire you as an educator, and they fire you as a coach."

The message was clear, and it leads back to both the Final Four and the gambling scandals. It's about math and magnetism. Where there is huge money, there is the lure. It's the old Willie Sutton line about why he robbed banks:

"Because that's where the money is."

No wonder the NCAA is worried. The signposts to its hell are everywhere: the factoid about the tournament drawing more money in legal wagers than the Super Bowl . . . the rumors of $4,500 ticket prices . . . the current HBO special on the 1951 CCNY championship team that ensnared itself in a gambling scandal of its own . . . the story of Avondre Jones, the Fresno State player who threatened a fellow student with a pistol and samurai swords . . . none of it combatable because the student bodies are so large and the NCAA so small.

That is why, for Majerus' oddly comforting analysis - "I hate to think about that. I'd be so heartbroken. I think any teammate would be so heartbroken. It's so tough to deal with" - the NCAA runs worried, perhaps even scared, even in the hour of one of its finest triumphs, with one of its most critically acclaimed tournaments about to run its course this weekend. It has come face to face with its own vulnerability, confronted by a problem it barely understands and can only combat reactively, with a message that sounds remarkably like " "Just Say No' and Hope for the Best."

"I guess guys see all the money out there and see that it can be available to them," Stanford guard Arthur Lee said. "They figure they have an opportunity to get their hands on some of it. I guess guys have different situations that they feel they can take advantage of, maybe because they think they don't have anything to lose and maybe they can get away with it. But there is definitely something you want to stay away from because it is not in the player's best interest."

One suspects Stevin Smith heard that message at Arizona State, like Dewey Williams heard it at Northwestern. And ignored it for the benefits of the temptation. Therein lies the problem for the NCAA - in accumulating the honey, it finds it hasn't enough resources to chase away the bees. To paraphrase Damon Runyon, the NCAA could eventually win its modestly appointed police action on gambling - but that's not the way to bet.&lt;